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Jose Mourinho reveals masseur Billy McCulloch gave Chelsea team talk at Manchester City

Chelsea's masseur inspired the 1-0 victory over Manchester City at the Etihad according to Jose Mourinho.

Last Updated: 04/02/14 2:03pm

Chelsea players celebrate their win over Manchester City

The Premier League title race was blown wide open by Chelsea's win and it was inspired by Scot Billy McCulloch according to Mourinho.

The Portuguese said: "I didn't speak to the team - I am serious! It was Billy the masseur who spoke to them.

"He was screaming so much in his Scottish accent, going grrr, grrr, grrr, that I didn't understand, but the players were clapping so they must have got it!

"The last time I spoke to them was at lunchtime. It was Billy's team talk, I'm telling you.

"Billy was fantastic, I didn't understand, but it looks like the players did."

Chelsea are now level with City on 53 points from 24 games with the pair two points behind leaders Arsenal.

Mourinho believes the Gunners are the favourites to win the title with his young side the outsiders in a three-horse race.

He added: "Maybe Arsenal deserve it more than us. They are top of the league and they are the favourites. We go behind them and play and watch.

"Two horses and a little horse that still needs milk and to learn how to jump. A horse that next season can race."

Mourinho added: "I just think it is very important because it is not good for the evolution of the team if you are playing in the Premier League 10, 15 points behind the leaders.

"It is not good for the evolution of the team if you are playing Europa League. We need big things... we need these kind of matches with the pressure we felt today and this for the team is very important."

Mourinho was delighted with the performance of his side after sealing a second victory of the season against Man City.

"I think we played fantastic, against a fantastic team. To play the way we did, I think is amazing for the boys in this process of building the team and prepare the team to be one of the favourites next season.

"I think this is a very important step - the best team in the Premier League, we beat them twice (home and away), and especially today we were fantastic.

"They had a couple of chances to score but we had the better chances to kill the game and the players played with fantastic spirit - the way I was trying to explain.

"You never know how things go but when they had the ball, we were all very humble and all very ready to work a lot defensively.

"When we had the ball, we were trying to play and we played very well."

Asked why he was not championing his side's title chances, Mourinho added: "Because it is not our objective to do that, our objective is to build a team. Our objective is to complete the puzzle and, more than the puzzle, complete the formation of the players.

"Some managers, some clubs because of their nature, their DNA say I need two, three, four, five years. I want to start the next pre-season in the summer and to say, and also my players to say, that this season we are going to compete directly with the best and we consider ourselves one of the favourites.